I am a multi cat household with a single diabetic cat. I have a bizarre situation happening. First let me mention my Tubz has been in remission since March of last year and doing great on just Friskies Pate Classic wet food. I do however have dry food in a location that "up until today" he has either ignored or not been able to reach while the other two cats could still get to it. Today I walked into the room and there he was chowing down on the dry food! I know that this can bring him out of remission. I checked his BGL right away to get a base line and I plan to check it again in an hour or so. He was at a 96 on my relion home meter (which I have had calibrated in the past at the vets) as long as he is under 150 we are still in the clear but 96 is already HI for him. We are usually between 68 and 86. My first question is, How long does it take after eating for the BGL to spike to its highest? I have clearly removed the dry food immediately and the other two cats will either get used to eating more wet food or have to monitored while eating the dry & thats that! My second question is, can this simple slip up send in out of remission? What if he has been doing it for a few days now and I just now caught him? I am so worried and I will go back to testing his BGL's 3 times a day for at least a week to know for sure but any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you ~ Heather
Looks like Tubz has decided he's missing out on the crunchies!
I wouldn't worry about the incident. If it just happened once, it's really unlikely he'd come out of remission because of one incident. If he was getting into the dry food and eating it on a regular basis then that would be a different story, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bandit has a bad habit of getting into foods we think are safely secured that he's not supposed to eat (including pizza, fried chicken, cookies, bread, and one time even matzos!). It's normal for his BG to go up a bit, but it should come back down within 48 hrs. The amount of time it takes depends on the food--dry cat food typically takes a longer time to clear than other foods because of the carb load, so I would expect his BG to spike a few hours from now and to be back normal by tomorrow or the next day. I know 96 is high for him, but it's still a perfectly fine number. It will probably go a bit higher before it starts to come back down.
As for future prevention, I found it easiest just to ditch all of the dry food from my house and feed both cats canned food only (it's healthier for your other cats, too). I feed 4 times a day, and I freeze the food and set it out in autofeeders when I'm at work or want to go to bed early. I only have two cats so that works out practically for me, but I have friends with 3 or more cats who tend to just freeze it and leave it out on its own, or even just add some water so it doesn't dry out and leave it out for all the cats. Both my cats can't be trusted to self regulate their eating, so that's why we use the auto feeders.
My nasty cats will even eat the wet food once its dry! Thanks for the reply. I have one cat who will eat ANYTHING (Digitz)....and one who will only eat the dry food (Gaz) & then there is Tubz who is the diabetic & loves any type of dry food but is willing to eat Friskies Pate but only the 4 fish flavors and NOTHING else. We have tried them all. Lol I just do not want to have to go back to monitoring him 3 times a day like I used to and giving him insulin esp. when it is something that could have been avoided.
Your story reminds me a lot of a diabetic cat I was helping to treat named Sydney. Sydney had severe neuropathy because he wasn't on a good treatment plan for a long time and he had difficulty walking. His owner had 3 other cats, and when she changed Sydney's diet to canned only she kept the dry food and fed it to her other cats upstairs, because Sydney couldn't climb the stairs. Sydney did great on his new diet and treatment, and after a few months he was almost about to go into remission, when one day his numbers started shooting back up into the 400 range. His owner was in tears because she didn't understand why he was doing so well and suddenly had a down turn. I thought the situation looked suspiciously like dry food numbers, and I asked her if there was any possible way he was getting into the dry food. His owner insisted there was no way, because he couldn't get up the stairs. The next day she called me and sure enough, she had caught him upstairs munching away at the other cats' food! His neuropathy had improved enough where he could climb stairs, and he decided he wanted his dry food back. After that, she got rid of ALL the dry food, and Sydney's BG came back down after a few days and he went into remission shortly thereafter.
It has been two hours and I retested him. His numbers came back down a little so I will just continue testing him to make sure he is ok. Tubz's neuropathy was so bad last year he could hardly walk and he had chewed all the hair off his legs. Within 3 months of being regular he was back to jumping and playing. It was amazing to see. I placed the dry food underneath the AC window unit because he hates that thing and the other two cats do not mind. Well I guess the appeal of dry food made him over come his fear of the AC unit. We all want to the eat things that are not good for us! I will just have to be extra careful about when Gaz gets to eat her dry food.
You may need to train Gaz to only eat the dry food when it is given to her. Once she is finished pick it up and put it where none of the cats can get to it. Otherwise, Tubz will most likely go after it again.
A bit of freeze dried chicken may help for the occasional crunchy treat.
You might switch our any dry food with Evo Cat and Kitten dry or Young Again 0 Carb (internet only)
A bit of freeze dried chicken may help for the occasional crunchy treat.
You might switch our any dry food with Evo Cat and Kitten dry or Young Again 0 Carb (internet only)
I've been using PureBites freeze dried chicken breast cat treats. Edwin likes them and their only ingredient is chicken. I've also used their beef liver treats, which are even more crunchy and don't break apart as easily as the chicken.
I've recently ordered the dog version of the treat (haven't got them yet), but they are much cheaper than the "cat" version and have the same single ingredient. They come in larger pieces, but they are easy enough to break up into smaller pieces. @chuchunga, maybe Tubz will like them and it will help satisfy his crunchy needs in a low carb kind of way.
I'm glad to hear Tubz is doing better. Hopefully your other cats might like the treats too.
